AcademicJournal of Marketing, 2026

People were about twice as likely to share the sponsored Instagram post when the influencer had low or high ad load instead of a middle one

Shortlisting creators

Reader Note:: A pre-registered experiment with 208 Instagram users who viewed a fashion influencer account built for the study, where endorsement rate was manipulated by showing 0, 2 or 4 sponsored posts out of 5. The outcome was actual sharing rather than a rating: participants could enter a lottery for the promoted duffel bag only by sharing the sponsored post to their own Instagram story and verifying it with the lab manager. 44.44% shared in the high condition and 41.79% in the low, against 21.74% in the medium one, which is where the "about twice" comes from. The effect size is low-to-medium (Cramer's v = .21), and the paper does not say when the experiment ran.
Evidence:: Experimental
Vendor interest:: None
Sample:: Multimethod study: Instagram field study of 6,869 sponsored posts from 4,908 influencers; experiment with 168 Twitter users; experiment with 208 Instagram users; Douyin field study of 147,877 sponsored videos from 1,000 influencers, plus comment-text analysis on 2,015,022 comments from 24,199 sponsored videos by 250 influencers.

Good for

Backing budget and pricing decisions in similar situations.

Not for

Situations far from the one tested, without checking again.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

Influencer selection is mainly based on engagement rate and audience demographics (94% and 88%), with only 25% using social listening on what consumers discuss

Share of marketers using each data input to select influencers, and what it measures
Data input	Usage (%)
Engagement rate (Influencer output)	94%
Audience demographics (age, gender, location) — Influencer audience	88%
Past campaign performance data (Influencer track record)	81%
Audience interest / affinity data (Influencer audience)	78%
Follower count and reach metrics (Influencer scale)	72%

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Sponsored posts got more engagement when influencers had either very low or very high ad loads, and did worst in the middle

In creator selection, brand fit mattered most and follower count mattered least

Most Important Factor Brands Use When Selecting New Creators to Work With
Selection factor	Brands (%)
Creator suitability or fit for brand	22%
Content performance	17%
Working with a diverse group of creators	14%
Brand affinity, or a history of posting about your client	12%
Follower audience demographics	10%

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Fixing your influencer marketing campaign: How to get into the top 10% of advertisers

1.95x

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97% of marketers say influencer marketing targeting is inconsistent, immature, or essentially guessing; only 3% say it is very mature with high precision

How marketers rate the influencer marketing industry's targeting maturity (% of respondents)
Industry targeting maturity	Share (%)
Very mature, targets consumers with high precision	3%
Somewhat mature, pockets of sophistication	44%
Immature, most campaigns lack structured targeting	29%
Very immature, essentially guessing	15%
Unsure	9%

89%

of marketers do not plan to work with virtual influencers AI avatars or digital clones of creators in 2026

People were about twice as likely to share the sponsored Instagram post when the influencer had low or high ad load instead of a middle one

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